


When I Don't Remember You

by jeanneMULTISTAN (xiu21chen99)



Category: Hunter X Hunter
Genre: Alternate Universe - Adventure Time Fusion, Author Is Sleep Deprived, Dialogue Heavy, Fluff and Angst, Ice King! Hisoka, Illumi as Marceline, Light Angst, M/M, Reminiscing, Singing, The Author Regrets Nothing, Vampire! Illumi, sad feels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-24
Updated: 2020-09-24
Packaged: 2021-03-07 17:01:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,389
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26631025
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xiu21chen99/pseuds/jeanneMULTISTAN
Summary: Just Illumi the Vampire Prince and Hisoka the Ice King singing a song about the past that one of them has forgotten, and the other could still painfully remember...(ADVENTURE TIME AU)
Relationships: Hisoka/Illumi Zoldyck
Comments: 4
Kudos: 26





	When I Don't Remember You

**Author's Note:**

> hisoka as the ice king and illumi as marceline !! i know the original story was not at all romantic, so i changed it up to better fit their characters !!
> 
> for reference, this fic is based off of [this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iOSUriAFLgk&ab_channel=AverageHero) scene in the series !!

Illumi banged his head on the refrigerator, disappointed. “Again, I’m sorry I pushed you.” From atop said appliance was Hisoka, peeking over the edge to give him an apologetic gaze. The vampire sighed and opened the fridge to grab something to bite. His kind lived off of blood, but he found it better for his conscience to satiate his hunger with anything red. “What you got there?” asked Hisoka.

“An apple?”

“Good grief!” Illumi yelled, the fruit thumping to a drop on the tiled floor. “I’m tired of this! Why are you even here?!” Hisoka jumped from his place to land next to him. “Because you’re an artist, Illumi! And I need help with these songs-”

Illumi, feeling enraged at the other’s lack of empathy- lack of _common courtesy_ \- reached over to stop his yammering with a slap. Hisoka held the reddening cheek with enlarged eyes. “Illumi?”

“You’re so clueless!” He knelt down onto the floor, and the ice king followed suit by squatting beside him. “ _I’m_ clueless?”

For the first time in probably two hundred years, Illumi felt the unfamiliar prick of tears from the edge of his eyes. “Yeah, you are.” He said, wiping the tears away hurriedly. “Oh! I have just the thing.” Hisoka stuffed his hand into his crown. It was large and looming and gold, spiked up and around his head; how typical of him to use it as some sort of head-knapsack.

Illumi stared blankly, a suspicious eyebrow raised as the tears fell unconsciously. Something scratchy and thin and papery was then pressed onto his cheek- when he glanced he found it was actual paper that Hisoka used to absorb the salty droplets. “What are these?”

“I don’t really know. I found them in an old drawer. They were full of scribbles with my signature, which was strange since I don’t remember writing them.” Hisoka gave him a toothy grin. “Some had good lyric potential, that’s why I came by to see if you could help me find a melody to them.”

Illumi blinked. “Do you have any more?”

“Oh yeah!” Hisoka stood, the paper he’d held to Illumi’s cheek glued stuck onto the skin. Now standing, he bent over lightly and shook his head. Illumi unstuck the material as a myriad of browned papers fall from Hisoka's crown in messy disarray.

The vampire gasped, recognizing a few of them They were newspaper articles - _before the war_. When they had met... “Hisoka!” Illumi cried in relief. The man was crouched down again, picking up the clutter he had made. Clueless as ever, Hisoka turned to him. “Huh?”

_There_. Illumi grabbed a picture on its descent beside him, his vampire speed showing from his lack of control. Memories emerge, the most precious ones that even a thousand years could never erase.

“Here!” He said, nearly tripping to show him.

This picture was taken when they had miraculously found a camera. During the war, when their home was everywhere and nowhere; they had hopped from town to deserted town trying to evade the dangers of the unknown. He and Hisoka were mere teens, but Hisoka was older by two years and he would always remind Illumi that, so he could have an excuse to go off and be all self-sacrificing.

Young Hisoka had an arm slung over his young self’s shoulder while his other hand was raised as if to wave. Illumi had been scared at that time, and Hisoka had laughed, telling him he’d always be there to protect him from all the bad things in the world.

_That was before they found the crown_.

“Is that you?” Hisoka asked in real-time. He’d crawled over with fistfuls of crumpled paper in each hand. The two of them sit on the floor in tense silence, as Hisoka glared at the black-and-white proof of their shared past. Illumi was staring into those struggling eyes. Hoping his anguish would come through.

“ _Is that me?_ ”

“Yes!” Illumi nearly jumped. “Yes, Hisoka- it’s _us_. Don’t you remember?”

“No, how weird- we both look so small.”

The vampire bit back a scream, punching the floor as an outlet of his frustration. “That’s because we were! You were nineteen in this, and I was seventeen!” Confused eyes stare back at him.

“Good g- _we were in Zaban_.” Illumi started, feeling desperation twitch in his dead, unbeating heart. “I was hungry, so we raided this restaurant. And since no one was around, we went straight to the backroom.”

It was a good memory; they hadn’t encountered any monsters that day- they even found a good amount of rations. Their smiles in this picture were genuine. “Turned out the room was actually some secret elevator. I panicked because _what if we can’t get back up_ and you calmed me down by hugging me.” A new wave of tears flooded down the side of his face.

He missed Hisoka’s warm embrace but Illumi was dead and cold now, and Hisoka was alive and icy.

“The only destination that elevator could go to was this underground tunnel. We found a car wreck there. The camera we took this picture with was among the debris. You were so _happy_ because-”

_“Hey, look! With this, we can prove that we were really here. That we really got through this God awful war, and maybe in a hundred years’ time, people will see this picture and think. ‘Wow, these kids were survivors’.”_

“Because this picture could prove that we lived.”

Hisoka, for once, was respectfully silent as Illumi swiped the wet tracks away from his face. “You don’t remember?”

“I’m sorry.” Hisoka smiled, sadly. “I really don’t.”

Illumi sighed, flipping the picture over. There were scribbles indeed, nearly filling the blank behind of the photo paper. He skimmed over the words, muttering under his breath what they had said. He gasped when he realized what message the paragraph was trying to say.

Hisoka preened, seeming to snap back to his usual playful self. “Are they good? Can we make a song out of it?”

“What- _no_ , it’s-”

Too late, Hisoka was already up and in the living room. His drum set that was abandoned soon _thump_ with a simple beat. Illumi followed him with sluggish steps.

“Come on, sing it!” Hisoka clapped his drumsticks thrice before continuing the beat again. The vampire sighed for the umpteenth time.

“ _Illumi_ , _is it just you and me in the wreckage of the world?  
It’s been real confusing for us little boys  
And I know I said I’d always be with you  
But I’m losing myself and I don’t want you to lose me, too…”_

“Keep going!”

“Oh!” Illumi rushed to the kitchen floor where the rest of the song was. He came back to Hisoka singing these words:

“ _This magic keeps me alive, but it's making me crazy  
And I need to save you, but who's going to save me?  
Please forgive me for whatever I do  
When I don't remember you…”_

Hisoka excitedly continued the beat. “Woah, I wrote that? Neat!”

“You don’t remember what it means?” He shuffled through the papers he’d salvaged, and showed Hisoka another picture. Words framed their smiling faces in a blur of black. “Look!” Hisoka abandoned a stick so he could take the proffered lyrics in hand.

“ _Illumi, I can feel myself slipping away  
I can't remember what it made me say  
But I remember that I saw you frown  
I couldn’t say sorry because of the crown…”_

Something akin to pain flashed across Hisoka’s features, as he tipped his head up only to see that Illumi had picked up his ax-guitar, was strumming chords to harmonize with the increasingly sad song.

Hisoka continued, and Illumi sang along with a reminiscent smile.

“ _This magic keeps me alive, but it's making me crazy_ _  
And I need to save you, but who's going to save me?  
Please forgive me for whatever I do  
When I don't remember you  
Please forgive me for whatever I do  
When I don't remember you…”_

They continued the hymn with heavy hearts.

Illumi, tormented to a forever of living in the shadows and feeding on crimson, was also burdened with the thousands of yesteryears that Hisoka forgot. Hisoka, who had always considered the crown a blessing, now looked into Illumi's pleading eyes and felt cursed.

Cursed because he didn’t remember Illumi.

**Author's Note:**

> hope that was sad enough ; u ; 
> 
> comments and kudos are appreciated !!
> 
> i also write ficlets here:  
> [Twitter](https://twitter.com/jeanneMULTISTAN)  
> [Tumblr](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/xiu21chen99)


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